Van Til, Intro to Syst Theology.Indd

An Introduction to Systematic Theology

Van Til, Intro to Syst Theology.1 1 10/10/07 5:01:21 PM Van Til, Intro to Syst Theology.2 2 10/10/07 5:01:21 PM An Introduction to Systematic Theology

Prolegomena and the Doctrines of Revelation, Scripture, and God

C o r n e l i u s Van Til

S e c o n d E d i t i o n

Edited by William Edgar R

Text based on The Works of Cornelius Van Til CD-ROM (New York: Labels Army Co., 1997). Used by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photo- copy, recording, or otherwise—except for brief quotations for the purpose of review or comment, without the prior permission of the publisher, P&R Publishing Com- pany, P.O. Box 817, Phillipsburg, New Jersey 08865-0817.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the King James Version or from the American Standard Version.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Van Til, Cornelius, 1895–1987 An introduction to systematic theology : prolegomena and the doctrines of revelation, scripture, and God / Cornelius Van Til ; edited by William Edgar.—2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-87552-789-5 (pbk.) 1. Theology, Doctrinal. I. Edgar, William, 1944– II. Title. BT75.3.V36 2007 230—dc22 2007018614

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Introduction by William Edgar 1 Preface 11 1. The Idea and Value of Systematic Theology 15 2. The Method of Systematic Theology 26 3. Christian Epistemology 56 4. Christian Epistemology: The Position of Charles Hodge 71 5. Christian Epistemology: The Positions of Herman Bavinck and Valentine Hepp 89 6. Christian-theistic Revelation 117 7. Present General Revelation about Nature 137 8. Present General Revelation about Man 154 9. Present General Revelation about God 176 10. Special Revelation 190 11. Scripture 223 12. The Inspiration of Scripture 241 13. The Incomprehensibility of God 260 14. The Apologetic Import of the Incomprehensibility of God 282 15. Innate and Acquired Knowledge of God 310

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16. The Names and Incommunicable Attributes of God 319 17. The Triunity of God 348 18. The Communicable Attributes of God 369 Index 399

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he main title of this volume, An Introduction to Systematic Theol- ogy, could give the wrong impression. That is why a subtitle has been added in this edition. For this is not a survey of systematic Ttheology, but an introduction, in the sense of a foundation, a theological and philosophical underpinning. Thus, unlike Louis Berkhof’s Introduc- tion to Systematic Theology or Herman Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics, this book is limited to what was called, in the older terminology, the prolegomena. As such, it covers the nature and method of systematic theology, the question of knowledge (epistemology), and revelation, both general and special. But unlike most prolegomena the book does venture into theology proper, or the doctrine of God. The reason for this selec- tion, clearly, is that Cornelius Van Til is concerned first and foremost for apologetics, the defense of the faith. He says it himself in the preface to the 1971 edition of the work (originally penned in 1936): “The present syllabus has an apologetic intent running through it”; to which he adds that these days, in order to generate Reformed theology, apologetics is a necessary undergird- ing. That is especially the case since apologetics of the right kind can help wrench us out of our man-centered outlook. In Van Til’s view, Im- manuel Kant has so defined the contemporary playing field that both philosophy and theology have been controlled by his method ever since. The essence of Kant’s approach, as Van Til points out, is to make the human being, not God, the final reference point in all predication. That is to say, if we are to make sense out of anything, the presupposition for assigning meaning and value to all of reality is human autonomy. Kant is a watershed figure because of his bold achievement,

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the “Copernican revolution” of thought. Instead of reality coming to us already defined from the outside, we define reality from inside our heads. Or, to bring it more up-to-date, describing a post-Marxist approach, Van Til cites as an example of such autonomy what Colling wood calls historical consciousness, which has become the agreed basis for our method of thinking. There is nothing new in centering predication and knowledge on the human being, of course. So Kant is not radically new. Still, he repre- sents a sea-change because of the degree to which his commitment to rationalism has influenced the succeeding generations. His work would eventually spell the death of metaphysics in most of the leading Western philosophies. Metaphysics pursues questions about being (ontology) and the universe (cosmology). Placing them in an absolute realm beyond science, Kant intended to protect them from rational assault. The effect, however, was that they eventually lost their relevance. Nietzsche famously pointed out that Kant’s unknowable absolute world is not consoling, redeeming, or obligating, and is therefore useless. At present there seems no end to the permutations stemming from anti- metaphysical views. Nietzsche’s descendants cynically reduce knowledge to power. The varieties of hermeneutical philosophies informally known as “postmodern” are an attempt to find some sort of meaning when “metanarratives” can no longer be believed. Heidegger suggested rediscovering being through poetry. Instead of knowing objective truth, however, what we have is Dasein, or being-in-the-world, including human consciousness. Our principal task should be the hermeneutics of Dasein. Heidegger indirectly engendered various post-structuralist thinkers, such as Derrida, Foucault, and Kristeva. For them, there is no ultimate meaning, only this-worldly preoccupations. Derrida, for example, rejects any nostalgia for being, and deconstructs any attempts at reintroducing humanism, yet goes on to suggest that we find our identity in language. Thus, for many of those thinkers, traditional meaning is devastated, and we are left only with the fragments, as though one had decided to shatter a beautiful vase and look for its qualities in some of the chips. Certain theologians have attempted to enter into an alliance with these kinds of post-Kantian views, affirming the possibility of a Christian faith untainted by metaphysics and rational pretensions. They make bold attempts to identify the risk of faith with models such as dialectics or post- modernism. The Roman Catholic philosopher Giani Vattimo suggests we embrace a “non-religious Christianity,” which is free from the pretensions of philosophy that seeks to understand reality in purely rational

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terms. He affirms that the positive aspect of the tragic march of human history is the revelation of the principle of humiliation, which centers in the incarnation of Christ, whose own humiliation led to the redemption of the world. Various post-evangelical Protestants espouse their own versions of these schools. Stanley Grenz was drawn to postmodern models advo- cating, as he did, a christological center and a “non-linear” outline for redemption, over against the older creation-fall-redemption ground mo- tive. The problem with such accommodations is that they are not able to relate the human creature with God the Creator in objective categories. Lacking a true theology of the Creator-creature relationship, they cannot assert the historical nature of the fall into sin from the state of integrity. And because of this they cannot fully appreciate the moral revolution that led to the fall, and so the problem in the human condition is not so much moral guilt as it is finitude, at least to some extent. As a result, redemption is not fully of God’s mercy, with a transition from wrath to grace in history, through Christ. Instead they must grope after divine lib- eration, turning revelation into a projection of the self, rather than seeing it as God’s merciful self-disclosure to fallen humanity. To offer an authentic alternative, Van Til makes the strongest plea, in the present volume and throughout his writings, for the right kind of connection between the Creator and the creature. At every turn, he sets forth the fully self-sufficient God of the universe. When God creates, the creature has meaning and significance only because of the Creator-creature distinction. This is not dualism, against which Van Til argues forcefully. Nor is it intellectualism, which relegates revelation to an abstract content quite distinct from the real world of the creation. The dualist and the intellectualist prize ideas over the real world. They look upward for meaning, but in abstraction from the revelation found in the flowers of the fields and the cattle on a thou- sand hills. Thinking to guard against providentialism, which claims to track the hand of God in all the events of history, dualists erect a wall between the supernatural and the natural. The result is that when there is revelation, it must “break through” the wall, and come lodge in particular persons, ideas, or events. Higher things, such as harmony, ideas, and freedom, somehow must be attained from where we are—below, with our limitations.

. Gianni Vattimo, Après la chrétienté: Pour un christianisme non religieux (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2004), 76, 103. . See, for example, Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God (Grand Rap- ids: Eerdmans, 2002), 348.

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Van Til argues forcefully against such dualism. Instead, he sees everything in creation as separate from a holy God yet filled with meaning on account of God’s government and his revelation. This can be only if God’s attributes are coterminous with his being. Yet he asserts that everything in creation reveals God: physical objects are particulars related to univer- sals, which together reveal God; the laws of mathematics or the laws of logic are not higher realities or independent from the details of a created world; time itself is “God-created as a mode of finite existence.” Even evil is a part of God’s plan, though he is not the author of it. How can the created world display both the unity and diversity, the immanence and transcendence defined by revelation? It is because of the aseity of God. God is God and needs no outside standard to define him. He is the Trinity, in which unity and diversity are equally ultimate. If one does not begin with the “ontological Trinity,” then one necessarily falls into the dilemma of rationalism and irrationalism at the same time. Rationalism posits that truth can be known through unaided human reason. Irrationalism says that truth is not rational, but mysterious. Both are involved in unbelief, in varying degrees. Van Til refuses the dilemma and pleads for another way, which affirms that because of revelation, human understanding is true, though not exhaustive. Only God is “fully rational.” Our rationality is derivative. It is not enough to say that we are less than God and that our knowledge is quantitatively smaller than his. As a matter of fact, we are qualitatively different. How, then, can all things be related, and how can we know them truly? It is precisely because God is able to make a creature in his image, dependent yet significant. We may know truly, though not exhaustively. Indeed, Van Til makes astonishing statements about human knowledge. For example, he boldly asserts that “man knows something about everything that exists.” Even the divine essence is known to us! He states that our knowledge and God’s knowledge “coincide at every point,” even though they are different in mode at every point. What allows him to claim such knowledge for the creature without centering the universe on some abstract principle common to God and man? Again, it is because of who God is. As all-powerful, omnipresent, and self-contained in all his attributes, God can and does make himself known to his creatures. As absolutely self-conscious, God does perforce reveal himself to his image-bearers. Being God’s image does not mean

. Cornelius Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Nutley, N.J.: Presbyte- rian and Reformed, 1974), 66. . Ibid., 164.

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we are only capable of receiving revelation, as though we were the right- sized “machines” for the appropriate “ghost” to fill. There is no third entity between the Creator and the creature; there are no ideas or pat- terns distinct from God according to which he had to create us. Being God’s image means we actually are conscious of God, constitutionally. Our inward consciousness is revelation, and it is the obvious corollary of an utterly sovereign God who nevertheless wills to create a universe outside of himself. The present volume explores the many aspects of this relationship.

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Cornelius Van Til (1895–1987) taught apologetics at Westminster Theological Seminary for some fifty years, beginning in 1929 and retir- ing in 1972, and then teaching fairly regulalry through 1979. A number of his books, such as the present volume, were originally class syllabi barely edited for publication, hence the unpolished nature of the prose. Though more than workbooks, they are not finely edited texts. There is quite a bit of repetition in this text. Nevertheless, the outline is quite clear. Van Til often wrote by way of copious commentary on certain issues and authors. True to form, here he comments extensively either on his chief opponents, such as Karl Barth, J. Oliver Buswell, and Gordon Clark, or on certain Reformed theologians whom he reveres, and so criti- cizes more gently. He devotes entire chapters to relevant texts by Charles Hodge, Herman Bavinck, and Valentine Hepp. The last chapters on the doctrine of God follow Bavinck’s Reformed Dogmatics rather closely. Some may find this method pedantic because Van Til will often stage a running commentary on specific paragraphs of an author and footnote one page after the other. But it can also be argued that such a running commentary helps us learn about certain issues with greater depth, because no stone is left unturned. It also permits a certain care and fairness in treating the questions at hand. For example, Van Til wrestles with A. E. Taylor’s views in chapter 11. The issue is scriptural authority. According to Taylor, the creature is so separated from the Creator that the creature cannot ever be assured that what he or she knows is absolutely true. Van Til traces the idea down to the presupposition that man is the ultimate interpreter of reality and thus incapable of coming into contact with the absolute given of revelation. He then argues for the biblical view, which

. Ibid., 63.

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states that God can get through, because “there is no absolutely given for God.” Taylor’s view carries the implication that God is not fully self- conscious. It also introduces the pagan idea that evil must be a part of the original universe. The thoroughness of Van Til’s survey of Taylor enables us to follow his argument more closely. In another example, in chapter 5, Van Til takes a look at Valentine Hepp. He appreciates that Hepp has improved on Herman Bavinck’s view of reason, because he ties it to the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit. This allows Hepp to level a robust criticism at empiricism and at pretended neutrality in thought. But then he points out that Hepp himself does not go far enough. For example, Hepp is not willing to critique Kant right from the foundation. He agrees with Kant that science may be justi- fied on the basis of human reason, and he faults him only for not taking revelation seriously enough. The problem is that only when God is fully sovereign and when all depends upon his revelation can any human thought have validity at all. If Kant were correct in his view that human reason is ultimate, then there could be no science at all. This is a gentle but firm critique of Hepp. Further, he does not fully appreciate the noetic effects of sin. Following him in his comments of Hepp is enlightening. Some of the argument is bold and yet subtle at the same time. For example, in chapter 8, while discussing the sense of deity, Van Til pauses to comment on whether intuition is more to be trusted than reasoning, as Scottish realism suggests. That possibility is plausible at first, inasmuch as intuition has not had as much chance to wander into large minefields of error as has ratiocination. At the same time, “reasoning is nothing but self-conscious intuition,” as he puts it, so that both are perverted by sin. This is a bold thought, in that it shines the light of biblical revelation about anthropology on the difficult question of intuition. Yet it is patient in the details as well. In chapter 13, Van Til, as he does elsewhere, rather thoroughly discusses the famous Gordon Clark case (1944–48). A unique debate arose in the early years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church over the similari- ties and differences between God’s knowledge and human knowledge. The occasion for the discussion was Gordon Clark’s application for ordi- nation. A “Complaint” against his views was expressed by twelve mem- bers of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, including Van Til. It argued that Clark’s views had the effect of correlating God’s knowledge and human knowledge in ways that blurred the line between Creator and creature. Although the Complaint was eventually denied, the issues raised were crucial to Van Til’s apologetic, and arguably to the future of Westminster

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Theological Seminary. What was at stake, above all, were the primacy of revelation and the utter dependency of human knowledge, which is true, but, in Van Til’s words, never comprehensive. This book is decidedly full of fascinating considerations. In chapter 15 Van Til revisits his subtle differences with Bavinck, whom he otherwise admires no end. He discusses certain areas where theology and epistemology overlap. This becomes the occasion for his comments on subjects like innate and acquired knowledge, and also his unique approach to the classical proofs. In the seventeenth chapter, he presents the Trinity by combining traditional Reformed orthodoxy, as exemplified in Bavinck, with some insights of his own. He argues that God is not only one God in three persons, but is also one person! He does this, first, because it fits the data of revelation. The Bible everywhere speaks of God as one person. Second, he is zealous to avoid dividing the Godhead into two categories, his essence and the persons. For many, the essence is somehow more basic than the persons. Such a dichotomy is a conces- sion to rationalism, which finds the persons more comprehensible than the essence. This spoils both the mystery of the Trinity and the accessibil- ity of the Trinity. So for Van Til, God is one person and three persons. Throughout the volume Van Til shows himself to be a master of his sources. Although his rapid-fire style may give the impression of rushing to conclusions, the fact is he is able to back up every statement. Even when he renders a conclusion without walking us through the details of his source, it is apparent that he knows them. Those of us privileged to study with him remember well his ability to go as far into detail as was required when challenged about his views on a particular author or theme. Another impression is that he does not do very much scriptural exegesis. This he always admitted, though in certain sections of the present volume he does refer to biblical texts abundantly. The fact is that the Bible and the great confessions are in his bones. He exudes Scripture. He loves the confessions. And he thoroughly knows the classical writers, Augustine, Calvin, and Warfield. He interacts extensively with Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Butler, Robert Bellarmine, Charles Hodge, William Mas- selink, and many others. He is also conversant with a good number of current writings on such subjects as inspiration, incomprehensibility, and the divine attributes. This is a man of deep learning, yet one who is aware that learning in itself is of little value.

. A concern here might be the definition of person. In the church fathers, the concept was developed to help explain the relationship between Father and Son. If God is one person, to what does he relate? Can he be self-contained? But if person means more a center of consciousness, as Van Til would have it, then his suggestion becomes intriguing.

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Admittedly some of the material is dense and hard going. Readers not naturally drawn to this kind of writing will need some patience in plowing through certain sections. And some of it is repetitive. Some of it seems unnecessarily combative. I sincerely hope the annotations in this new edition will help the process along. They explain a number of Van Til’s major concerns. And it is helpful to remember that his greatest burden was that the church be deepened in its worship of God, longing for it to return to a full-orbed understanding of the gospel, and then to bring that gospel to all people. “It goes without saying,” he concludes at the end of chapter 1, “that if all these benefits are to come to us as min- isters and as a church, we must undertake our work in a spirit of deep dependence upon God and in a spirit of prayer that he may use us as his instruments for his glory.” We could even say that Cornelius Van Til had a pastor’s heart. To be sure, a volume such as this one is nothing like a catechism, or sermons for a congregation. Still, the minister’s concern for God’s people emerges throughout. He worries about intellectualism in the church, as we have seen. He reckons that the background for that particular tendency is a shallow view of sin, one that reduces it to misinformation rather than what it is, “a power of perversion in the soul.” The answer to this radical distortion is the “glory of the saving power of God,” which is for his people. Sometimes his pastoral concerns may catch the reader off guard. Van Til believed in the reality of prayer, and was not embarrassed to men- tion it in a technical book of philosophical theology. For example, in the midst of a specialized discussion of George Hendry and the Niebuhrs on the matter of the static nature of much theology, he remarks on God’s personal activity, which confronts us everywhere. He then adds, “There- fore obedience to God’s revelation is the proper attitude for man whether he is active in the laboratory or in the house of prayer.” My mind goes back to a seminar we had with Dr. Van Til on modern theology in the 1960s. A student had made a presentation that did not exhibit the sort of critical acumen the professor expected of us. After the class he took a couple of us aside and asked whether our friend were spiritually all right. He led us in prayer for him.

* * *

. Van Til, An Introduction to Systematic Theology, 7. . Ibid., 130–31. . Ibid., 166.

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Both in the splendid smaller volume, Van Til: The Theologian (Phillips- burg, N.J.: Pilgrim, 1976), and throughout the larger work, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1995), John M. Frame stresses the importance of Cornelius Van Til as a dogmatician who knows philosophy. Of course, it works the other way around as well. Ac- cordingly, both titles are intentional. He is a theologian. And the latter volume is an analysis of Van Til’s thought rather than of his apologetic. Frame states that “the most distinctive aspect of that apologetic was its consistency with Reformed theology.”10 The point is controversial in the larger world of philosophy, but I believe it to be accurate and insight- ful. Many would draw a sharp line of separation between apologetics (or philosophical theology) and dogmatics. The idea that apologetics should deal exclusively with philosophical issues, using the discourse of philos ophy rather than the religious language of theology, has a long pedigree, intensifying from the Enlightenment onward. G. W. Leibniz wrote on apologetic themes, such as theodicy, or the problem of evil, using mostly philosophical categories. Friedrich Schleiermacher did the same, delv- ing also into anthropology and history. In our own time, we may think of William Lane Craig, J. P. Moreland, and even Alvin Plantinga in the same vein. Perhaps Karl Barth is different, although he would never claim to be doing apologetics, being quite opposed to it. When he does cover philos ophy, though, it is not always fully connected to theology or exegesis. But Van Til is first and foremost a theologian, whose brush is capable of broad, philosophical strokes. Readers used to today’s specialization are regularly surprised at the ease with which Van Til moves from the Bible to philosophy to doctrine. For example, in chapter 10, which is about special revelation, he speaks of subjects ranging from the fall and the resurrection, to Kierkegaard, Arminianism, Calvin, the Roman Catho- lic Church, ex nihilo creation, Bishop Butler, miracles, Gordon Clark, Hebrew and Greek terms, Matthew Arnold, angelophany, Jesus Christ, and much more! All the while, he is discussing the necessity and modes of special revelation. Sometimes he makes the connections explicit. In another example, in chapter 14, we see the direct connection between philosophy, doctrine, and apologetics. That chapter, entitled, “The Apol- ogetic Import of the Incomprehensibility of God,” relates the doctrine of God’s transcendence to difficulties not only in theologians such as J. O. Buswell, Karl Barth, and Emil Brunner, but also in writers like Kierke gaard and, especially, the philosopher Hegel. Van Til’s concern is that if

10. John M. Frame, Cornelius Van Til: An Analysis of His Thought (Phillipsburg, N.J.: P&R, 1995), 241.

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we are not doctrinally clear, we cannot really challenge our contempo- raries with the radical demands of the gospel. Defending a full biblical teaching on God’s incomprehensibility, Van Til attacks modern rationalism and modern irrationalism. Any concessions to them, albeit by Chris- tians, give away the hope that is in us. Thus, he concludes, “The result is failure to challenge modern man with the full gospel.” To put this another way, the discourse of theology is the discourse of worldview. This book, while it goes into considerable details on doctrinal and philosophical issues, is concerned to set forth the totality of the Christian worldview, centered in the gospel of Christ. Some of the names and controversies may be a bit dated. But the message is not. Studying it carefully will pay rich dividends. The text of this edition of An Introduction to Systematic Theology is virtually identical with the original. It has been lightly edited for punc- tuation, consistency of capitalization and spelling, and grammar. Occa- sionally a word is modified either to modernize the meaning or to better fit the original intent. Also, a few parentheses shown in the typeface you are now reading have been added, which contain such items as trans- lations from a foreign language or succinct explanations of terms. The main addition to this edition is the use of annotative footnotes, again in a distinct typeface from that used for Van Til’s material, to provide longer explanations. Some of them expand on ideas in the hope of clarifying issues only briefly set forth in the text. Others refer the reader to sources, or to complementary passages in Van Til’s other writings. Still others make comments on Van Til’s approach and how he has been perceived. All these helps are offered in the hope of making the original text all the more accessible to today’s readers.

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he first “edition” of this syllabus appeared some thirty-five years ago. Its title then was An Introduction to Systematic Theol- Togy. Since then much has happened in theology. Yet the old syllabus is now made available again in a practically unaltered form. The author has dealt with the main developments of recent theology in other writings. The most important of these is that of neoorthodoxy. Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics (Kirchliche Dogmatik) is its main monument. The writer has dealt with neoorthodoxy in The New Modernism and in Christianity and Barthianism. Barth’s theology was the basic background for The Confession of 1967. The writer dealt with this new confession in The Confession of 1967: Its Theological Background and Ecumenical Significance. The author believes that neoorthodoxy is Christian in name only, not in fact. While neoorthodoxy was developing in Europe, a movement called new evangelicalism was developing in America. New evangelicalism sought to replace fundamentalism in its statement and defense of the historic Protestant faith. The author dealt with new evangelicalism as set forth by one of its chief exponents, Edward J. Carnell, in The Case for Calvinism. It is the author’s conviction that only the Reformed faith gives an adequate statement of biblical revelation, and that therefore it alone, and not a general Protestant theology, is equipped to deal with neoorthodoxy as the outstanding heresy of the day. Meanwhile Professor Herman Hoeksema was preparing his work on Reformed Dogmatics (1966). Much good exegesis underlies

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Hoeksema’s work. However, the author cannot agree with his de- nial of common grace. The doctrine of common grace is, the author believes, based on sound biblical exegesis and forms an important element in a truly biblical theology and apologetic. In Common Grace these convictions are set forth. During the same thirty-five years a dogmatic work of many vol- umes, based on much exegesis and extensive historical knowledge appeared. It is Dr. G. C. Berkouwer’s Studies in Dogmatics [1952–76]. Dr. Berkouwer’s work is also contemporaneous in that he has, during this period, written extensively on the development both of Roman Catholic and of Barthian theology. During this period Berkouwer underwent a change of attitude toward both Roman Catholicism and Barthian teaching. This change was in the direction of a toning down of opposition to both movements. Back of this change in relation to Roman Catholic and neoorthodox theology is a change in his view of Scripture. This change in his view of Scripture is in the interest of doing greater justice than former Reformed theologians have done to the human element and, with it, the general historical character of scriptural revelation. The author has not been able to do adequate justice to Berkouwer’s work; he has, however, taken note of it in various places and has devoted one small book to the subject. Its title is The Sovereignty of Grace. The present syllabus has an apologetic intent running through it. A Reformed theology needs to be supplemented by a Reformed method of apologetics. This involves relating the historic Christian position to that of modern philosophy, as well as theology. But modern philosophy and theology find their most typical expression in the epistemology of Immanuel Kant and his recent followers. In modern philosophy and theology even more obviously than in ancient philosophy, man is the final reference point in all predication. Robert G. Collingwood’s philosophy illustrates this fact with remarkable clarity. Many existentialist philosophers and theologians as well as many process philosophers and theologians refer to Col lingwood’s idea of the historical consciousness in justification for their method of thinking. The author has dealt with the British-American background of the “historical consciousness” in a syllabus, A Survey of Christian Epistemol- ogy, and, more briefly, with the German background of the historical consciousness in The Later Heidegger and Theology. The Christian faith as a whole, as a unit, must be set over against the non-Christian faith as a whole. Piecemeal apologetics is inad-

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equate, especially for our time. A Christian totality picture requires a Christian view of the methodology of science and philosophy, as well as a Christian view of theology. One cannot have a really Christian theology unless one also has a really Christian science and philosophy. In trying to develop a Christian totality view, the writer has had much help from the Philosophy of the Cosmonomic Idea as set forth by professors D. H. Th. Vollenhoven and Herman Dooyeweerd of Am- sterdam, and by professor H. G. Stoker of Potchefstroam. It was, in particular, Dr. Dooyeweerd’s detailed analysis of the history of philosophy that was of much help. However, Dr. Dooyeweerd finds it impossible to agree with the present writer in making the full biblical position the transcendental presupposition of the possibility of predication. Dooyeweerd says that I am bringing in the religious problem prematurely. I, on the other hand, am convinced that unless one offers at the outset the totality interpretation of all reality as given in Scripture as the presupposition of the possibility of ask- ing any intelligent question, one has not really offered the Christian position for what it really is. My first criticism of Dooyeweerd’s views appeared in the syllabus Christianity in Conflict (mimeographed), and Dooyeweerd’s criticism of my views and my reply to his criticism ap- pear in Jerusalem and Athens. A perusal of these materials may help the interested reader to see why the present syllabus reappears with little change from its earlier form. My indebtedness to such former Reformed theologians as Louis Berkhof and, back of him, Herman Bavinck and Abraham Kuyper, is apparent throughout.

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